McRib sandwiches contain same ingredient as yoga mats, shoe soles

Attention: Your McRib sandwich is probably not good for your heart. It has 980 mg of sodium and 10 grams of saturated fat. But then we already knew that it wasn’t exactly health food.

According to Time’s healthland blog, that’s not all it has: The sandwich contains 70 other ingredients. And some of those ingredients, such as azodicarbonamide, ammonium sulfate and polysorbate 80 are kinda gross.

These components are in small enough quantities to be innocuous. But it’s still a little disconcerting to know that, for example, azodicarbonamide, a flour-bleaching agent that is most commonly used in the manufacture of foamed plastics like in gym mats and the soles of shoes, is found in the McRib bun. The compound is banned in Europe and Australia as a food additive. (England’s Health and Safety Executive classified it as a “respiratory sensitizer” that potentially contributes to asthma through occupational exposure.) The U.S. limits azodicarbonamide to 45 parts per million in commercial flour products, based on analysis of lab testing.

Something tells me this news isn’t going to stop people from eating the sandwich.